The combination of my daily Wellbutrin with a Claritan D to ward off the allergy attacks from the pollen (exacerbated, no doubt, by dusty files) PLUS my morning cup of coffee must have been too much of a jolt for my poor-addled mind to handle.

I’ve been unfocused and nervous and have all this anxiety that has no where to go. I tried channeling it into cover letters, but anxiety is the opposite of arrogance, so that was a lost cause.

Important Documents haven’t gotten to Important People (thanks UPS!), I haven’t started packing for the office move, (I’ve been ARCHIVING, there is a difference) and after a brief burst of attempted gym rattery, I’ve not been in a month. Now, it’s a popular notion that exercise is a good means to combat stress/anxiety. However, my anxiety is such that I can’t even stay still long enough to do a worthwhile amount of time on the treadmill. (Yes, I know I wouldn’t be “staying still” on the treadmill.  It’s the struggle to just do ONE task that’s driving me mad.)

This job is making me bitchy. I was just really impatient with  the UPS lady on the phone. There are so many piles and papers surrounding my desk that I don’t even know where to begin. I know the sooner I get done with these things the sooner I can have my sanity back, but it’s one of those paradox-like things and I just lost my train of though.

At this point, I should really just go home, but I’m paranoid about driving because my windshield was replaced and the guy was like “you have to wait an hour” (that was 90 minutes ago) and I don’t know what I think I’m achieving by waiting longer, especially since I’m going to go drive on Route 80 and risk getting my windshield re-smashed by another pesky rock.

I also like to write run on sentences.

Yesterday sucked. I think it was probably my worst day ever at this job, to the point where I was in tears.I rarely cry at things that aren’t movies, but the trifecta of stress, frustration, and general overwhelmed-ness, built up, and for a few minutes, I cracked. Yesterday, I definitely felt that my job sucked, and I was just angry about the situation.

And then I pull back, and there is STILL this reluctance to complain, because it’s not as bad as The-Job-That-Wasn’t. I was sort of relating this to a co-worker last week, that no matter how upset I get about things at work, it was so bad at The-Job-That-Wasn’t, that I really can’t let myself get too bereft. She likened it to an abusive relationship; (“at least this job doesn’t hit me!”) which is overstating the case quite a bit, but accurate in a black-humor way.

It’s not just the job that’s getting to me. My undergrad is having a 5 year reunion in June, and there’s a facebook group for it, and I stupidly looked through pictures people are posting and got depressed. I knew maybe one person in any of the pictures, but they’re all having typical collegiate fun and reminiscing and blah blah blah I-Had-A-Lousy-College-Experience. Some people are traumatized by their high school experiences and you just want to tell them to get over it. Some days, I’m still not over the fact that I missed out on the college experience. I don’t have friends from college, I don’t have pictures from college, I don’t have memories from college. It was 3.5 years I got through as quickly as I could. Most of the time I am over this, and have made my peace with it.

Occasionally, the resentment and anger at myself creeps up and then I just start thinking about how I wish I could have done it all differently, and how different my life could be right now (different how, I’m not sure) and really, it’s just messy self-pity that really shouldn’t be indulged.

Also, “Welcome to Whereever You Are” came up on iPod shuffle on my way to work and it made me teary. (“You’re caught between just who you are/and who you want to be”) Clearly the stress is getting to me.

But instead of memory, or a reflection on the fact that yesterday marked nine years to the day that I first kissed The Ex (and the fact that that was nearly a decade ago…my lord), or yet another navel-gazed novel about how I’m feeling I decided to go for a stream of consciousness blather. I’m not even going to re-read this before I post it.

I don’t know why I’m suddenly fretting about work. Maybe its because before this job turned permanent, I had the luxury of being able to say “well, it’s just a temp job. It doesn’t matter too much if I suck.” I’m also probably being over sensitive, because the experience at The-Job-That-Wasn’t was so dreadful that old habits are dying hard. It took me probably a month being here before I could even ask questions and take the answers at face value.

I am surviving and I feel horrible for merely surviving, because I want to be awesome. At the job, that is. See, I’ve by the calendar been there nearly a month, but with all our Jewish holidays off I’ve only been there about 13 days.

So it’s frustraing. Especially because I am the type who hates to ask questions and hates to ask anyone for help and this is exactly the situation in which I need to simply ask questions.

I don’t know. I feel accomplished today because I made a lot of phone calls to get a form filled out when no one in house knew how to do it, but I also feel bad because I had to bother the same people (who I had to make multiple phone calls to) a few times.

I’m just still insecure right now. Some moments I feel okay, like I am picking up on things and learning my job and everything will come in time (as everyone keeps telling me) and other times I feel like a total idiot failure.

I’m just scared of total failure. I want to be good at this. And typical me, I’m frustrated that after 13 days on the job I’m not as good at the girl I”m replacing who was there for five years. I know it’s surface level irrational, but I know everyone got used to having someone in the position who just KNEW everything, and I don’t know anything, and so far, that’s just really hard to me.

I hope it will get better….I mean, it has to, right?

A quick post to say I have my first real project at work and I am terrified out of my mind. I am trying to reassure myself with the fact that I was nauseated with nervousness over my first research project for work last September and it turned out okay, so maybe I just need to get through this first project and then I’ll feel more comfortable in the job. 

I love $1.25 large coffees from a coffee cart. Delicious sludge.

So I’ve been awake since way too ungodly an hour since I got up to get a drink of water and realized “oh. we apparently don’t have water.” Also still have to figure out how to get Emily her keys, considering she doesn’t know I have them in the first place, and I don’t have a cell phone (still.) Which means I don’t want to leave Hyde Park to attempt to get cell phone issue resolved because I’m relying on internets to communicate about keys.

I’m unneccesarily stressed and paranoid about all this cat sitting stuff. Like some guy was right behind me going into the building last night and I was very conscious of him walking up the stairs behind me and I was thinking “omg, what if he tries to rob me? What if he tries to make me open the apartment and then lets out the cat?!?” Even though there’s plenty of electronics that I’m sure would-be robber would care about way more than the cat. But I would save my own cat over a DVD player and now that I’m talking about it, I’m getting myself anxious about this actually happening.

I’m generally never worried about my personal safety, and like there’s these moments of panic here, its always a bit of relief to open the door and confirm that yes, cat is still alive and well. And now I’m all paranoid and anxious to go over there, but I have to wait until an acceptable hour to confirm the water problem isn’t just my apartment and find out if I need to let maintenence people in.

I still don’t feel good. Being that I always feel about 15 degrees hotter than it actually is, the heat and I are not getting along already. And not having water is just a good way to start the day, when all I want is a shower.

At least for a couple of days.

I realize, I’ve basically been anticipating this day since I found out the date the rough draft was due some time back in September. April 13th has been like, a touchstone. Oh touchstone’s the wrong word, but don’t look at me: I’ve gotten about 7 hours of sleep in the past 72 hours, I’m a little out of sorts.

“So if your thesis is due tomorrow, what do you do for the rest of the quarter?” my brother asked me last night.
“Well this is just the rough draft, we get comments on it and then we turn in the final on May 4th.”
He asked the question that anyone not associated with my program has been asking “…so then why are you obsessing if its just a rough draft.”

So here you are, in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look, but inside
Where we all respond to PRESSURE
-Billy <3

I have fifteen minutes before my next class, and it isn’t as if I’d get anything done in those 15 minutes, so…
I also skipped my last two classes to work on my thesis. Oops. They’re big classes though, so it doesn’t matter.

So after a meeting on Monday and a meeting on Tuesday I basically walked down the hall back to my office, got online and screeched “I JUST FIGURED OUT WHAT’S MISSING IN MY THESIS!!!!” Unfortunately, I found this out a mere 72 hours before the deadline, so my heart has been pumping and my brain racing since then. I didn’t sleep last night — I didn’t mean to pull an all nighter; I tried to fall asleep on two seperate occasions, but my brain was just raising, clarifying my ideas in my head, trying to organize things, and so I finally gave up. I’ve been up 30 hours and counting — it took me a little bit of staring at the clock to calculate that. I am carrying around approximately 20 books and 50 journal articles related to Carl Schmitt. After class I need to put in another hour’s work on the thesis, go home and nap wake up around midnight and then no sleep till its done. I wanted to be a total overachiever and turn it in early (It’s due 11:59 PM on Friday) but it’ll probably get in Friday morning instead of the Wednesday-Thursday-at-the-latest I was aiming for. Because of my epiphany I think I’m going to have to sacrifice good writing throughout for a couple strong sections and hopefully a well-chained argument. I’ve never been so nervous about turning a paper in .

I’d like to say that I’ll be celebrating this weekend since my paper will be in, but really I’ll just be catching up on all the reading I didn’t do while I was in “omg, re-write 3/4 of my thesis in 72 hours!” mode.

Help.

Okay.

So I screwed up massively on one of my final papers from last quarter. How I pulled a good grade in the class is a miracle. Anyway, my professor writes “incredibly articulate and at times, even impressive, but…”

And I’m too insecure to actually put what the “but’ actually says, but lets say it comes down to essentially doing undergraduate level work instead of graduate.

I was aware of a lot of these issues when I submitted it due to an oversleeping issue that lost me hours of work on the paper so this isn’t unexpected.

However. I really like this subject, and I know I could’ve done better on this paper, and some reading I’ve done over break has made me realize how better to construct the type of paper I should be instructing. And for my thesis I really would like this professor to be on my committee, because he is an expert on the subject.

So how should I approach this? I’ve written, what I think is a good proposal for my thesis, and I know I’ll be able to improve it once I go through my workshoping this week? Do I acknowledge my screw up on the final when I talk to him? Do I acknowledge that that paper is clearly evidence of where I misunderstand what graduate level research requires and acknowledge the ways in which I now better understand how to do that? Or do I pretend it never happened and just present this paper proposal to him?

If it matters, in all my interactions with him he is has come across with a genuinely decent guy and so maybe asking a second change to prove I’m not a moron isn’t so rash? I mean, I totally get what he is saying in his comments; I’m doing more summary than I am arguments, but I believe I can show in my thesis proposal how I can move beyond this. Can I approach him after writing such a shitty paper for his class?

Grad school really is a freaking roller coaster. My good mood and positive attitude lasted approximately 16 hours. Now I am anxious over something I screwed up for work (the dread of waiting for your boss to come talk to you about what you wrong. In this case, the dread is going to last until 4 PM tomorrow when I next see him). I am also back to stressing out about empirical/statistical methods courses to the point of nausea.

I WANT  to be able to get into a PhD program. If I don’t get in where I want, am I going to regret not taking this stupid class that was recommended to me? Is it going to be one of my big “if onlys?” I’m trying to put this is perspective, but I’m having a difficult time, because being at U Chicago is like having blinders on. At U Chicago, they think they are The Authority on everything, and so whenever ANYONE in a position of authority tells you anything, you think you have to take them on their word, regardless of what you may think/feel.

(It’s funny. One of my “issues” is I have a lot of defense mechanisms that are often unhealthy. U Chicago has massive defense mechanisms issues, because outside of academia, people forget about U Chicago because it’s not among the Ivies. U Chicago is an amazing institution, and the name carries a lot of respect in academic/law school circles, but not to the general public. U Chicago thus overcompensates by proclaiming to by the Final Word on everything. I mean, I’m sure all schools do that to an extent, but Chicago is ridiculous about it.)

Maybe I should just lower my standards and accept the fact that no matter what I do I will not get into my Super-Secret-Dream-School. But then, what if getting some empirical methods experience is the deciding factor in considering me there, and blah.

And now it sounds like I’m basically whining because I don’t want to take a class because it’s hard and it’s boring and whatever. I mean, I know I’m going to have to do these things within a PhD program eventually. Maybe I should just suck it up on the Comparative Politics front.

Maybe I should just not take the class I think I need for my thesis; maybe I don’t really need a whole class on The Prince in order to incorporate Machiavelli into my thesis. And then I can take Florentine Republic next quarter anyway. Maybe.

Ug. I need to talk to someone who is not my precept about this and get a second opinion.

Jon Stewart singing a line from Allentown = adorable

My midterm is about 90% done and no more energy or motivation to work on it tonight. It’s due at 3PM tomorrow, so I need to get up early, especially because I should put in a few hours at work tomorrow. (Not only do I have an office. My hours are completely flexible. ) But I took a nap today, so now I’m not going to be able to sleep. 

I’ve given up on the idea of NaNo this year. I was going to do it, if only for the social aspect because it was a nice way to meet people in New York last year, but I don’t have the time or energy. Add to the mix that I don’t enjoy writing fiction, and..meh. It’s a disappointing conclusion, because I’d like a non-UChicago outlet; that’s why NaNo was such an awesome thing to do in 04′ because it was a non-Skidmore outlet. But that was undergrad with 15 credits at a small liberal arts school and I had a car. I would like to finish HTLAR eventually, but that is “fictionalized” and not fiction. 

I feel like writing something eloquent. I usually write in my head. Walking to campus in the morning, I’m composing paragraphs in my head, and by the time I walk home at night, they’ve been edited a dozen times. It’s how my brain works. But my brain is busy with academic matters and so the eloquence will have to wait for free time and possibly infusion with alcohol.

I need an auto-complete; still haven’t found an apartment, written my Dallas essay, or cleaned my room.

I spent Sunday night laying about, reading the first four books of the Little House on the Prairie set and eating sushi. 

I spontaneously took the train to Ridgewood on Saturday and went to see Brenty. We went to Hillside for ‘quality time’. Our wacky drive was a creative way to Jersey City (Last exit off of Route 4, and then drove through Fort Lee, Edgewater, Weehawken, etc. I believe it’s the Weehawken area where things get creepy; it’s ALL condos and little Sim City enclosed communities along the Hudson. I am sure they are outrageously expensive. Also, that is where Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr dueled. (Note to the younger-wiser-sibling: It is unclear whether they were dualists.)

I am reading “Inventing Japan: 1853-1964” because it is only about 200 pages, and I hope it will make up for the fact that I never, ever paid attention or did the reading for the Japan part of “Comparative Politics of India and Japan” two years ago. I remember lots of stuff about India, (SHINING INDIA) but nothing about Japan other than never mix sake with any other alcohol and, regarding the Jews “you guys are alright, but…”

I really, really hope to find an apartment tonight, because I want to go out for Czech food with my co-workers tomorrow. Mmm, Czech food. And Czech beer. I adore Eastern Europe! Blah, blah, blah, debate about whether the Czech Republic is still “Eastern Europe.” You can’t take the Government major out of the girl. Which is why I’m going to grad school, for which I should be writing an essay. …and full circle!

I’ve already lost the hat that I so smartly purchased, and this was the wrong morning to be without a hat. I am probably going to be reduced to buying an “I ‘Heart’ NY” hat from one of the touristy vendors by my office. It will probably cost $12. Yay Midtown-Tourist District. I’m at 52^nd and 7^th, so I’m mere blocks away from Rockefeller Center and the awful, awful tree (stolen from Wayne, NJ!) and Radio City Music Hall and the area is simply teeming with stupid tourists.

I really hope the MTA goes on strike because

a) It won’t affect me

b) I enjoy chaos (which is very un-Hobbesian of me!)

c) I like the fear-mongering in the media. Especially because it is also supposed to snow on Thursday

I am drinking disgustingly bad coffee that I bought at the kiosk downstairs. However, the bad coffee is kind of growing on me, and it does its job.

Also, I am a walking Ann Taylor ad today. Except for the functional footwear.

Apartment drama continues. I go back and forth between really, really wanting to stay in my place and wanting to just move and not deal with the increased rent/lease hassle, so I am making lots of phone calls and playing with budget numbers, and being all Type-A. And Brent would make my life sooo much easier if he would get over his “I don’t want to live with a girl” nonsense.

Grad School

Me: Watching Twister makes me want to find me a meteorologist husband and go chase tornados (said with the appropriate twang)

Brent: That man would have to have the patience of a saint considering the way you behave on roller coasters

Me: Any man who dates me will have to have the patience of a saint. Besides, I don’t do that anymore.

Brent: Need I bring up the Rolling Thunder incident?

Me: That was like ten years ago! Besides I bet the post-tornado-chasing sex would be really hot.

Brent: Wow. You are absolutely the biggest loser ever.

-Circa March 2005

(I was paging through my history notes and found that conversation scribbled down. And then Twister was on TV on Friday afternoon! It was so serendipitous! It is also appropriate considering I have definitely secured my title as a Difficult Woman.)

Really Boring Grad-School Obsessing

Grad School Rambling

The few hours I slept, I was dreaming about taking my Modern final.

My hands have been shaking since 8 PM last night.

“A few more hours to be complete” etc.